Alfred Wallis

(British, 1855-1942)

Steamer, Lifeboat and Lighthouse 36 x 53.5 cm. (14 x 21 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Jim Ede
With The Piccadilly Gallery, London, August 1962, where acquired by
Dudley Doust, thence by family descent to
Private Collection, U.K.
Their sale; Bonhams, London, 9 March 2011, lot 6, where acquired by the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
London, The Piccadilly Gallery, Alfred Wallis, 17 July-11 August 1962, cat.no.46

Proportion is integral to the work of Alfred Wallis and understanding the value he placed on each element within his work. Ships, houses, trees, people and fish are not represented with realistic scale. Rather, the 'ancient mariner' would allow whichever aspect of the composition was most important to him to also become the largest. In the present work this takes on poignant meaning, both with the forms depicted and the physical scale of the board itself at 14 x 21 inches.

Like most artists, he was often influenced by the events that went on around him, painting things he had seen, such as airships or shipwrecks. Of the latter, one in particular made a lasting impression – the wreck of the SS Alba. The Panamanian freighter had been carrying a cargo of coal from South Wales to Italy and ran aground on Porthmeor Beach during a storm in 1938. The St Ives lifeboat, Caroline Parsons, which was still rowed by lifeboatmen, capsized during the rescue mission and was washed onto the rocks but with her crew surviving the disaster. Wallis made a number of paintings of this subject but was perhaps more personally affected by a subsequent tragedy. Following the loss of the first lifeboat, a second was dispatched from Padstow, called John and Sarah Eliza Stych, and loaned to St Ives. On the night of 23rd January 1939, this boat was called out to help a ship in trouble but capsized three times before being washed onto the rocks at Gwithian, near Godrevy. Just one of the crew of eight survived and sadly there were no survivors of SS Winston. The loss was felt deeply in the community and "Wallis was so upset by this event that he saved three weeks of his pension – his only means of livelihood at the time – and gave it to the lifeboat fund" (Robert Jones, Alfred Wallis, Artist and Mariner, First Light, 2018, p.186).

In the present lot, the lifeboat is large and centre stage, the focus of this substantial painting for the artist. Wallis has painted her unmanned and resting in the calm water at the entrance to a harbour. The work can be seen as a touching tribute from a former seaman (and local man) who was well aware of the danger faced by the lifeboat every time she launched and was filled with quiet admiration for the men that worked her.